Interview: Avonelle Lovhaug

Aug 19, 2022

In this episode, I interview my friend Avonelle Lovhaug.

 

Avonelle has been a software developer for almost 30 years and has been an independent consultant for two decades. She works with tech-savvy small businesses that want professional custom software solutions for a fixed price. Many of the applications she has created are web-based and built using Microsoft technologies, though she also has experience creating mobile and Windows-based tools.

 

In our discussion, we get into several topics that she has experience with such as long-term clients, her methodology for using fixed pricing on projects, monthly support contracts, and invoicing. We end with a discussion of some different tools we both use on a day-to-day basis.

 

This was a fun interview to do and I really could talk with her all day on these things, but we ended right around 40 minutes.

 

Episode outline:

 

• Background
• Long term clients
• Ideal would be adding a new customer every year
• Usually work with 2 - 5 clients a year
• How she found who her ideal client and ideal project is
• Clients who want their business need solved and are not concerned about the implementation
• Smaller clients and projects
• Often only developer
• Her methodology for using fixed price on projects
• Invoicing
• New client - money up front
• Payments for deliverables/milestones
• Usually leave a period of ~60 days after project allows for bug fixes, etc.
• Monthly support contracts
• Support, bug fixes
• Sometimes emergency, sometimes not
• Priority support vs. non priority
• Allows for clients to budget for support
• Allows for 1/4 - 1/3 time available for support
• Invoicing in general
• Quicken home and business
• Uses the estimate functionality
• Print to pdf and email invoices
• Discussion on different tools we use
• OneNote
• Notes
• Documentation
• Searching
• Screen shots
• Snagit
• Screen shot utility
• Azure DevOps
• Issue and bug tracking
• Connect code to issues
• Releases
• RedGate SQL Change Automation
• MSDN Universal/Visual Studio Enterprise subscription
• JetBrains subscription
• Beyond Compare
• .NET Reflector
• Slack
• GitKraken
• YouTube Professional
• Pluralsite
• Her reason for being an independent